We've had lots of fun trying recipes for quick and easy summer desserts. Now Kay Briggs of Canton, N.Y., moves the focus to the beginning of the meal with a very easy and delicious summer soup recipe.

``This soup was very well received when I used to make it in summer,'' Briggs writes. ``The recipe obviously predates concerns about salt and cholesterol, but I assume cooks can make the necessary adjustments. I never tried it hot, but when chilled it was very good.''

Using reduced-sodium condensed soup and replacing the cream with fat-free half-and-half will, indeed, address nutritional concerns.

Q: I keep seeing ``chipotle pepper'' on restaurant menus, in recipes, etc. My question may seem silly, but can you tell me what it is, exactly?

A: It isn't a silly question at all. Many of us grew up with nothing more exotic than bell or cubanelle peppers. And though I've tasted a lot of chipotle-flavored foods and even cooked with chipotle peppers, I didn't know until I looked it up that they are red-ripe jalapeño peppers that have been smoked.

The heat, combined with the smoky flavor, gives even simple foods a new dimension. I serve the sauce here with a supermarket rotisserie chicken on days I don't have time to cook. It's also nice with grilled fish. You can add chopped garlic, bell pepper or onion if you prefer a salsa-like texture.

Chipotles are sold dried or canned in adobo sauce. Leftovers of the canned variety can be refrigerated, well-covered, or puréed and frozen in 1-tablespoon increments. I like to add it to soups, stews and omelets.

GRANDMA'S COOKIES

Back in April, Mary Covey asked readers to help her find the recipe for ``a very old-fashioned butterscotch cookie'' with a browned butter icing that her grandmother made. Her mother recalled that ``it started with sour milk, because she always got to add the vinegar to the milk and watch it curdle.'' Covey said the recipe did not use butterscotch chips.

Soon after, we received several responses and worked up the recipe here, which my editor reports she inadvertently left on the ``pantry shelf'' until now.

Sue Edmiston sent her own grandmother's recipe, which fits the description nearly exactly except that it calls for sour cream rather than soured milk. Hilda Fitzgerald of Watertown, N.Y., says she immediately recognized what Covey wanted, since she frequently made the cookies ``back in the 1950s. I still have the recipe in an old, battered notebook I used to write favorite recipes.'' Fitzgerald adds that she sometimes sandwiched two cookies together with the icing.

SLEUTH'S CORNER

Q: One of your columns reminded me of a recipe I used to have that made almost instant mousse. You softened unflavored gelatin in water, then mixed it with sherbet and Cool Whip, and popped it in the freezer for just a little while. I don't remember the proportions, but I do remember how good this was on a hot summer night. It probably dates to the late 1970s.

Lisa P., Miami

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